Buddhism has always taught that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.

Your statement is false.

In Buddhism, abortion is only considered the taking of a human life after the 19th week. How do we know this? A bhikṣu etc., only commits parajika, a complete defeat, if he causes an abortion after the 19th week. Prior to that, causing an abortion is not considered killing a human being.

All of the arguments against abortion hinge on religious beliefs. Therefore, they violate the establishment clause of the first amendment.

Buddhism has always taught that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.

Your statement is false.

In Buddhism, abortion is only considered the taking of a human life after the 19th week. How do we know this? A bhikṣu etc., only commits parajika, a complete defeat, if he causes an abortion after the 19th week. Prior to that, causing an abortion is not considered killing a human being.

All of the arguments against abortion hinge on religious beliefs. Therefore, they violate the establishment clause of the first amendment.

This. In addition there is no single entity called “ Buddhism” which teaches anything. I can point you towards a number of Buddhist authorities who take the view that abortion, can under certain circumstances, be the least worst option for all concerned.

“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Buddhism has always taught that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.

Your statement is false.

In Buddhism, abortion is only considered the taking of a human life after the 19th week. How do we know this? A bhikṣu etc., only commits parajika, a complete defeat, if he causes an abortion after the 19th week. Prior to that, causing an abortion is not considered killing a human being.

All of the arguments against abortion hinge on religious beliefs. Therefore, they violate the establishment clause of the first amendment.

From the moment of conception there is only way for that to develop into something......a human being...

cause and effect...you purposely kill even the embryo it's murder of a human being.

Maybe some Buddhist schools have it other wise but in 2020, it's not just life but we know it is human life form.

All of the arguments against abortion hinge on religious beliefs.

I was an atheist and never looked to any religion to help me judge whether the embryo is a human life form or not. Or whether it was murder or not.

Maybe to you in your mind it's all about religion to everyone with opinion on abortion, but it is not mine.

also unrelated to your post, i find the arrogance of basing abortion opinion on roe vs wade as spurious opinion .

Buddhism has always taught that abortion is the taking of an innocent human life.

Your statement is false.

In Buddhism, abortion is only considered the taking of a human life after the 19th week. How do we know this? A bhikṣu etc., only commits parajika, a complete defeat, if he causes an abortion after the 19th week. Prior to that, causing an abortion is not considered killing a human being.

All of the arguments against abortion hinge on religious beliefs. Therefore, they violate the establishment clause of the first amendment.

From the moment of conception there is only way for that to develop into something......a human being...

cause and effect...you purposely kill even the embryo it's murder of a human being.

Maybe some Buddhist schools have it other wise but in 2020, it's not just life but we know it is human life form.

All of the arguments against abortion hinge on religious beliefs.

I was an atheist and never looked to any religion to help me judge whether the embryo is a human life form or not. Or whether it was murder or not.

Maybe to you in your mind it's all about religion to everyone with opinion on abortion, but it is not mine.

also unrelated to your post, i find the arrogance of basing abortion opinion on roe vs wade as spurious opinion .

Whether abortion is legal or not, women will continue to seek abortions. Where it is outlawed, or where access to abortion is restricted, women’s lives are placed in danger. So, one either chooses to understand that women need to be able to make this choice on their own, and wrestle with their own conscience, or keep dying because of illegal and botched abortions performed in back ally clinics. It’s more of a public health issue than anything else. And all arguments against abortion are religious in origin, none are based in science.

I, for one, do not want to have other people’s religious opinions, principally the opinions of men, turned into laws that affect a woman’s right to treat her own body as she needs.

Whether abortion is legal or not, women will continue to seek abortions. Where it is outlawed, or where access to abortion is restricted, women’s lives are placed in danger. So, one either chooses to understand that women need to be able to make this choice on their own, and wrestle with their own conscience, or keep dying because of illegal and botched abortions performed in back ally clinics. It’s more of a public health issue than anything else. And all arguments against abortion are religious in origin, none are based in science.

If all you want is for the government to stay out of abortion, why should taxpayers fund abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, like all the major 2020 Democratic presidential candidates propose? I didn't have doubts about the Democratic Party until recently, when it became the official position to support repealing the Hyde amendment.

Whether abortion is legal or not, women will continue to seek abortions. Where it is outlawed, or where access to abortion is restricted, women’s lives are placed in danger. So, one either chooses to understand that women need to be able to make this choice on their own, and wrestle with their own conscience, or keep dying because of illegal and botched abortions performed in back ally clinics. It’s more of a public health issue than anything else. And all arguments against abortion are religious in origin, none are based in science.

If all you want is for the government to stay out of abortion, why should taxpayers fund abortion through all nine months of pregnancy, like all the major 2020 Democratic presidential candidates propose? I didn't have doubts about the Democratic Party until recently, when it became the official position to support repealing the Hyde amendment.

Because sometimes nonviable pregnancies require late term abortions, and because abortion is generally illegal after the second trimester in virtually all jurisdictions. Again, it is a public health issue, not a moral one. And because it is a public health issue, some women need public funding.

So, from the moment of conception, 40% (at least) of embryos spontaneously end up on the trash heap or in the sewer system, developing into biological waste.

"My religion is not deceiving myself."Jetsun Milarepa 1052-1135 CE

"Butchers, prostitutes, those guilty of the five most heinous crimes, outcasts, the underprivileged: all are utterly the substance of existence and nothing other than total bliss."The Supreme Source - The Kunjed Gyalpo
The Fundamental Tantra of Dzogchen Semde

No one (I hope)is advocating abortion as a method of birth control. There are far more efficient ways of controlling the numbers of children born. But it seems to me that some Buddhists have been directly or indirectly shaped in their attitude to abortion by Catholicism. Certainly there is no Buddhist consensus on the issue. All arguments that begin with a declaration that a group of developing cells are somehow a “person” and terminating that development is murder.
The advocates of such a view seem unaware that they have fallen into the trap of positing an atta.

“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Whether abortion is legal or not, women will continue to seek abortions. Where it is outlawed, or where access to abortion is restricted, women’s lives are placed in danger. So, one either chooses to understand that women need to be able to make this choice on their own, and wrestle with their own conscience, or keep dying because of illegal and botched abortions performed in back ally clinics. It’s more of a public health issue than anything else. And all arguments against abortion are religious in origin, none are based in science.

I, for one, do not want to have other people’s religious opinions, principally the opinions of men, turned into laws that affect a woman’s right to treat her own body as she needs.

Thanks for this it helps me to make my opinion clearer.

Ok first up maybe it's all religion to you cause you are living in the american paradigm on this matter and it seems Americans that are for the right to abortion have their biggest foe in the Christian community.

To me every woman should have the right to make her own decision on this. The American government owes them this in their pursuit of happiness , that just popped into me head...lol...

Women should have a safe and socially accepted place where they can have a proper abortion performed.

But...lets be real here....it is murder...you are ending a human life that hovered above their parents whilst they were having fun and depending on which one disgusted you you end up being man or woman...i read that in some Tibetan thing...ok i digress but bring up another point.

But...lets be real here....it is murder...you are ending a human life, and should at least know what you are doing and the consequence.

Not that one more murder in your infinite life streams is going to matter that much...

Being in this position where you need to choose such a thing is just part of your ongoing experience here in samsara...So these people are murderers from the past and they are thrust into this karmic situation where they have to choose between life and killing life, once again , and again, and again...

it's the reality...why candy coat it...

all that being said , this i wholeheartedly agree with and it cannot be said enough !!!

I, for one, do not want to have other people’s religious opinions, principally the opinions of men, turned into laws that affect a woman’s right to treat her own body as she needs.

Abortion is based on convenience in most cases..Still karmic law is what it is...and you end up in these situations due to your personal cause and effect ongoing samsaric cycle one finds themselves in...

You are not addressing a vital point. There is no “ human life” in a collection of developing cells. Just the potential for human life. At some point in the development of a foetus it is appropriate to think of a separate human existence. Before that point it is a collection of cells with the potential to become a discrete being.
If you are a Catholic you believe that when a sperm and egg come together a soul is created in bodily form.
There is no such belief in Buddhism. In fact the existence of such a soul is denied in the anatta doctrine.
You cannot murder a collection of cells.

“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

You are not addressing a vital point. There is no “ human life” in a collection of developing cells. Just the potential for human life. At some point in the development of a foetus it is appropriate to think of a separate human existence. Before that point it is a collection of cells with the potential to become a discrete being.
If you are a Catholic you believe that when a sperm and egg come together a soul is created in bodily form.
There is no such belief in Buddhism. In fact the existence of such a soul is denied in the anatta doctrine.
You cannot murder a collection of cells.

There is a Buddhist teaching that after the 49 days in the bardo one sees their parents mating. Whatever sex you are going to be is the one which you feel most disgusted and revolted at when you see the moment of copulation...dad bugs you and you end up male.

i was taught this.

Also the Buddhist concept of mind and karmic continuum would dictate that this human potential as we both agree on what the embryo is, is imbued with the mind of the potential human being. just because the human form is not complete does not mean the mind is not one with the embryo.

You are not addressing a vital point. There is no “ human life” in a collection of developing cells. Just the potential for human life. At some point in the development of a foetus it is appropriate to think of a separate human existence. Before that point it is a collection of cells with the potential to become a discrete being.
If you are a Catholic you believe that when a sperm and egg come together a soul is created in bodily form.
There is no such belief in Buddhism. In fact the existence of such a soul is denied in the anatta doctrine.
You cannot murder a collection of cells.

There is a Buddhist teaching that after the 49 days in the bardo one sees their parents mating. Whatever sex you are going to be is the one which you feel most disgusted and revolted at when you see the moment of copulation...dad bugs you and you end up male.

i was taught this.

Also the Buddhist concept of mind and karmic continuum would dictate that this human potential as we both agree on what the embryo is, is imbued with the mind of the potential human being. just because the human form is not complete does not mean the mind is not one with the embryo.

I won’t address your first paragraph because in my view it is posited on a body negative and sex averse position which is local and cultural rather than intrinsic to Buddhadharma.
You used the term murder which is very specific in its legal and forensic meaning. It means to deliberately and criminally take the life of another human being. It is arguable that it could apply to a foetus in the late stages of pregnancy, but by definition cannot apply to a zygote or foetus in the first trimester.
This does not mean that abortion has no consequence in terms of karma-vipaka.
But in samsara, sadly, often we have to decide the least bad option.

“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

There is a Buddhist teaching that after the 49 days in the bardo one sees their parents mating. Whatever sex you are going to be is the one which you feel most disgusted and revolted at when you see the moment of copulation...dad bugs you and you end up male.

i was taught this.

I won’t address your first paragraph because in my view it is posited on a body negative and sex averse position which is local and cultural rather than intrinsic to Buddhadharma.

This was something i learned from Tibetan Buddhism...so you are saying this is not Buddhist Dharma... Well then maybe a Bon thing that creeped into Tibetan lore ?

The point is , i will refer to it as a theory for now, from the a stand point of the process described or any process of conception when does the mind become one with the human process of development?

Also i have learned from this series of posts that the word murder is not to be used, and why it is totally out of order in these discussions due to the nature of the word. .

Ok so let use terminate human life. Is that ok...

From what i gleem from a Buddhist perspective of mind and its correlation with human life it all starts at conception.

Anyway yeah legally defining human life is at birth ...but this is a Buddhist site and so much which is deemed legal , like the fifth amendment, has little in common with enlightened view .

thanks for helping.

This does not mean that abortion has no consequence in terms of karma-vipaka.

my point exactly

But in samsara, sadly, often we have to decide the least bad option.

Well doing the right thing when you know it is the right thing takes a Diamond Bodhisattva Warrior attitude. It's not easy .

case in point:
A Geshe once told me of a Tibetan Monk who survived jail during the Mao era. He was tortured , would not give up his vows and beliefs, and managed to find solace in the pleasure his tortue gave to the jail guards. It gave him pleasure that he was a source of pleasure..

I'm not there yet, maybe a few more thousand lives and i will be. But i refuse to water down reality for convenience in samsaric situations .

Minobu I give up. You are not getting the difference between a potential human life and a substantive human life. But lets leave it there.
Please feel free to aspire to a situation where you eventually get masochistic pleasure from someone else’s sadistic pleasure..but don’t expect that to be seen widely as a virtue.

“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

Minobu I give up. You are not getting the difference between a potential human life and a substantive human life. But lets leave it there.
Please feel free to aspire to a situation where you eventually get masochistic pleasure from someone else’s sadistic pleasure..but don’t expect that to be seen widely as a virtue.

Please feel free to aspire to a situation where you eventually get masochistic pleasure from someone else’s sadistic pleasure.

nothing i posted comes close to warrant this sort of troll response.

Too much hate on this site ...trolling ..glad when trolls return...meh...so long farewell it's been hell.
d

Pointing out that terminating zygotes does not equal terminating human life is not “ trolling”.
Pointing out that ideas like the one that says your gender is determined by which gender causes you most aversion, are grotesque,is not “trolling”.
Pointing out that the idea that we should aspire to deriving pleasure from the sadism of others and that the idea that this aspiration is virtuous, but is actually deeply weird, is not “trolling”
Pointing out that actions that you consider virtuous I consider dysfunctional, and presumably vice versa, is not “trolling”

We just have very different ideas about what constitutes Buddhadharma.

“You don’t know it. You just know about it. That is not the same thing.”

The Buddha's teachings for both monastics and laypeople forbid abortion as the taking of an innocent human life:

The Vinaya
The Training Rules of Discipline for Monks and Nuns – to encourage the abortion is a major serious offense – a parajika offense that leads to expulsion of that person from the Sangha (the Community of Monks and Nuns), makes a monk or a nun defeated and can no longer be called a son or daughter of the Buddha. The Buddha was that serious about not engaging in nor encouraging abortion.

An ordained monk should not deliberately deprive a living thing of life, even if it is only an ant.

Whatever monk intentionally deprives a human being of life – even to the extent of causing an abortion – he becomes no longer a (true) recluse (samana), not a son of the Sakyans [i.e., no longer a follower of the Buddha].

As a flat stone, broken apart, is something which cannot be put back together again, so a monk who has deliberately deprived a human being of life is no longer a (true) recluse, not a son of the Sakyans. This is something not to be done by you as long as life lasts.

Remember, the precepts are protective – so this rule protects the baby’s life.

Now some people may say – oh, the first Sutra is for Bodhisattvas, the Vinaya is for monks and nuns, I am just a lay person. So what is the Buddha’s advice to lay people if they want to rise up to upholding the precepts in order to follow the Buddha’s path?

The Sutra of Precepts for Lay People

In the Sutra of the Upasaka Precepts, the Buddha says this for laypeople who uphold this precept:

If one destroys an embryo inside a woman by making her take poison, one is guilty of 2 sins – the act [of killing] and its associated elements.